House bellwethers to watch

5/17/12 7:19 PM EDT

NRCC Chair Pete Sessions and DCCC Chair Steve Israel outlined their views of the House landscape today and hewed to their familiar positions. Sessions continues to offer his highly optimistic view that Republicans will add to their majority while Israel claims Democrats will make significant gains but stops short of promising they’ll win back control.

Q: What are a few bellwether districts that we should watch to see how things are going?

SESSIONS: Utah’s 2nd District (Jim Matheson, Democratic incumbent, versus Mia Love, Republican challenger) and Illinois’s 12th District (Jason Plummer, the Republican, versus Brad Harriman, the Democrat). Those two seats will tell us whether we are going to win big across the country and hold what we have got.

ISRAEL: California’s 10th District (Jeff Denham, the Republican, versus Jose Hernandez, the Democrat); Illinois’s 8th District (Joe Walsh, the Republican, versus Tammy Duckworth, the Democrat); and New York’s 25th District (Daniel Maffei, the Democrat, versus Ann Marie Buerkle, the Republican). Those are three districts — California, Illinois, New York — that are bellwether and should tell us the story of whether we are going to get the 25.